by V. A. Stuart
That attack had heralded the end of the siege of Sebastopol. During the night, the Russians had withdrawn their troops from the city and its surrounding forts and bastions, leaving the harbour a wilderness of burnt-out, sinking ships and blazing buildings. But for the Allies, faced with an appalling butcher’s bill, there had been little joy in the victory. How much joy, Phillip wondered glumly, as he poured a lavish tot from his flask for Midshipman Lightfoot, how much joy would there be today?
“Mix that with lemon juice,” he cautioned. “And drink it slowly, Mr Lightfoot.” The boy, he realised, was shaking with excitement, eager as a puppy, but he managed a dutiful acknowledgement although, in fact, he had swallowed most of his shared portion at a single gulp. It was too dark to see his face clearly but he appeared to be grinning and Coxswain O’Brien, working dexterously with his measure by the dim glow of the boat’s lantern, passed out the last of the men’s grog ration and observed dryly, “Wonderful to be young, sir, is it not?”
He was a small, spare man of indeterminate age, who had joined in the Raleigh’s launch as a volunteer from the 84-gun flagship Calcutta which, on account of her size, had remained at the Hong Kong anchorage. He had only joined the previous day, as replacement for the launch’s regular coxswain, who had gone down with fever, and Phillip asked him, curious as to his antecedents, “How much service have you put in, Cox’n?”
O’Brien looked surprised. “Eighteen years, sir.” His voice was educated, with no trace of accent. “I should have known better, shouldn’t I? Never volunteer—that’s not a bad motto in the Navy!”
“Well, why did you volunteer?”
The coxswain shrugged. “I served here in ’42 in the Dido, sir, under Captain Keppel, and I thought I’d like to see him in action again. It’s a rare sight, I can tell you.” He shifted the plug of tobacco in his mouth from one side to the other, muttered a “beg pardon” and spat expertly over the gunwhale into the murky water below him. “I was in Sarawak with him too, sir—with him and Rajah Brooke. Those were the days! We were never out of action and we revelled in it, chasing pirates and Dyak headhunters by boat up the river. And as for Captain Keppel, why there wasn’t a Captain afloat that could touch him. I remember once he …” His reminiscing was cut short by a flashing light signal from the Coromandel, upstream and to port, a signal that was repeated by her next in line, Haughty, and then by Starling and Hornet. The first two weighed anchor and, paddle-wheels clanking, could just be seen as dark shapes, starkly silhouetted against the glow of the lightening sky.
Conscious of a quickening of his pulse, Phillip watched them, as they started to forge ahead in the direction of the island and the as yet unseen fort which was their objective.
It would be the turn of the second division next; there was activity on the Hong Kong’s deck as her duty watch prepared to weigh anchor and a rocket rose from the fort to hurtle skywards in hissing proof that the Chinese were aware of the impending British attack.
“Out pipes, my lads,” Phillip ordered. “Gun’s crew close up.” He felt the tow rope go taut and the bowman called out, “The Hong Kong’s under way, sir!” a slight tremor in his voice. Day dawned with the startling suddenness of the East; the shower of rockets which had been rising from the walls of the fort abruptly ceased and, glass to his eye, Phillip saw the Coromandel, with the Admiral’s flag at the foremast, alter course, evidently to avoid some obstacle. She was within about two thousand yards of her objective, smoke belching from her two squat funnels as she increased speed but, a few minutes later, Midshipman Lightfoot, squatting behind the bow-gun, let out a yell of dismay.
“The Coromandel’s grounded, sir!”
Phillip raised the Dollond again. The flagship was held fast on some submerged barrier but Commodore Elliott, he saw, was wasting no time—already his landing parties were piling into their boats. The fort opened fire; roundshot and grape peppered the water all round the racing boats but all fell short and the Haughty, holding to her original course and beautifully handled, supplied effective covering fire when the boats were beached and the first wave of scarlet-coated marines leapt ashore on the shelving river bank.
The Coromandel had brought two of her three guns to bear now and her gunners were pitching shot and shell into the fort with admirable speed and accuracy. The landing party of seamen and marines, with Commodore Elliott well to the fore, charged up the steep hill with bayonets fixed, cheering as they ran. The position was a formidable one and, Phillip thought, as he watched, a body of resolute troops could have made a hard fight of it. The Chinese, however, unnerved by the heavy fire from the gunboats, after firing a few more shots, abandoned their stronghold and their guns to flee in wild disorder across the paddy fields to their rear.
They were not pursued but, within minutes of the British party’s entry into the fort, several of its guns were turned on the line of junks moored in an adjacent creek, upon which they got out their sweeps and started to make off. The Haughty’s boats, which had landed a reserve party of marines, were seen to be re-embarking some of them and, the first phase of the attack successfully completed, Commodore Keppel signalled the remainder of his flotilla to advance up the channel on the east side of Hyacinth Island, himself leading the advance in the Hong Kong.
CHAPTER TWO
They made good progress at first, on the rising tide, but then the river began to shoal and, one after another, the gunboats grounded. The Hong Kong, with her light draught, got within sight of the first division of junks before she, too, was brought abruptly to a standstill in the shallow water and Commodore Keppel could be seen entering his six-oared galley and waving to the other boats to cast off their tow-ropes and follow him.
“Right, my boys, this is it,” Phillip sang out. “Out oars and give way together!”
His crew needed no urging. Pulling with a will, they sent the heavy launch skimming through the water, making a race of it with the Starling’s pinnace. It was tiring work, with the sun now hot on their backs and a heavy fire of grape from a gun battery, masked by trees on shore, falling about them like rain. The first division of junks, numbering twenty or so, were moored in a compact line and positioned so as to bring the enfilading fire of their guns on the attacking force. They presented an awesome spectacle from the approaching boats, high, square-prowed craft painted in garish colours, each with an eye depicted on the headboards, their upper decks swarming with men and brass cannon bristling from their lower deck ports. Apart from a few sighting shots, they held their fire until the leading British boats were within 600 yards and then they opened with devastating effect.
Keppel’s galley sustained at least one hit before it vanished from sight in the smoke of battle, but the heavier boats were now within range and returned the fire with their bow-guns, Phillip’s among them. Led by Edward Turnour’s cutter and that of the Hornet, the rocket-boats sent a shower of incendiaries into the close-packed junks, which set first one and then another ablaze, the flames spreading rapidly from adjoining, tinder-dry decks and matting sails. The first line disintegrated in a series of fires and explosions, spars and timbers hurtling skywards as stored powder blew up and, with little conscious recollection of how they had got there, Phillip realised that his boat had passed through the once-formidable line and was faced with a second, moored at right angles which, as they approached it, met them with a hail of missiles from gingalls and cannon.
Some of the gunboats had evidently come up, for heavier fire than could have been sustained by the oared boats was opened on the second fleet of junks, which brought a brief but timely respite and enabled the leading boats to close with their opponents. Twice Phillip took his launch alongside a junk with the intention of boarding but each time the crew abandoned ship with scant ceremony and, adhering to his orders, he left the third and fourth divisions to take what prizes they could and continued upstream. As the smoke cleared he could see, a mile or so ahead, the flag-draped mastheads and red and green prows of yet another line of moored junks.
Keppel’s galley, flying his pennant of blue bunting, was making towards them, the rowers straining at their oars and several light gigs and pinnaces close astern in support. With the Sybille’s launch and the Calcutta’s black pinnace to starboard and just ahead of him, Phillip urged his own men to redouble their efforts and, aided by the now strongly flowing tide, they managed to reduce the distance separating them from the leading boats. But then both launches and one of the rocket-boats grounded off the southern side of a small, flat island. When they finally refloated, they were a hundred yards astern of the Commodore’s gig which, with only four boats in support, was receiving terrible punishment.
“Come on, lads!” Phillip yelled hoarsely. “A strong pull does it! Fire as you bear, Gunner’s Mate!”
The junks, he saw, were so placed as to present a front of their heavy thirty-twos; their fire was as rapid and accurate as if they formed the broadside of a frigate, and the two launches, with the Hornet’s rocket-boat fractionally ahead, emerging into the main channel north of the island, found the water alive with ricocheting shot. Phillip’s bow-gun engaged in a brief duel with one of the junks and then was put out of action by a roundshot, which struck with such force that the gun was dismounted, crashing backwards and pinning the gun-captain’s legs beneath it. Whilst they were struggling to drag the injured man clear, a second shot took his head from his body and, continuing on its deadly way, wounded two of the midships oarsmen.
All about them, Phillip could see foundering boats, some with whole sides of oars shot away. He went to the aid of one but succeeded in rescuing only four of the crew, the rest being dead and, through a momentary gap in the swirling gunsmoke saw, to his dismay, that Keppel’s gig was sinking, the Commodore himself standing ankle-deep in water on one of the thwarts. He yelled to Lightfoot to steer towards the stricken gig but the Calcutta’s black pinnace was before him. Keppel, his Flag-Lieutenant, Prince Victor of Hohenlohe, and two others— both obviously wounded—managed to scramble aboard the pinnace only seconds before the gig submerged. The Chinese, sensing victory, sent salvo after salvo into the scattered boat flotilla but they were not having it all their own way—several of the junks were sinking, others on fire, and two, at least, had their sweeps out, preparatory to taking flight. Obstinately determined to reply to their fire, Phillip scrambled forward to assist the two surviving members of his gun’s crew to right their weapon, but the task was beyond their strength and their frantic efforts came near to swamping the launch.
“Sir … sir!” Lightfoot was at his side, mouthing something at him which he could not hear. But the boy was pointing and he saw that the Calcutta’s barge, with Keppel in the sternsheets, was coming towards them, her Commander waving to them to retire, and he gave the order thankfully. Rowing back against the tide, with the men gasping and close to collapse at the oars and a disabled gig in tow, they had to run the gauntlet of the junks’ fire but, miraculously, the launch was not hit. The Hong Kong and Starling, floated by the rising tide, had come up two miles from Hyacinth Island and the boats of Keppel’s division reformed abreast of the Hong Kong. The gunboats were under very heavy fire, which was now concentrated on them and, although they replied with spirit, the Hong Kong, her decks crowded with wounded men from the boats, was hulled a dozen times in as many minutes and Keppel, standing on her sponson, his glass to his eye, gave the signal to retire out of range.
The deeper-draught steamers, led by the Haughty, with the third and fourth divisions of boats, could be seen coming up, and, clear of the worst of the enemy fire, the Hong Kong dropped anchor to await the arrival of much-needed reinforcements. Phillip transferred his wounded, numbering four, to her surgeon’s care, replaced them with volunteers from the gig they had rescued and, with their aid, managed to remount his battered brass gun. The order came to serve out quinine and biscuit to the exhausted boats’ crews and this was being obeyed when Commodore Keppel, still keeping the junk fleet under observation from his vantage point on the Hong Kong’s paddle-box, suddenly gave vent to a stentorian bellow.
“The rascals are making off!” A small, unmistakable figure in his white pith hat, he shook his fist in the air. “You rascals— I’ll pay you off for this! Man the boats, my boys! Man the boats!”
Not everyone had heard his order but his meaning was clear as he was seen to go over the side into the Raleigh’s cutter, commanded by Edward Turnour, the faithful Spurrier at his heels with his length of blue bunting, the dog, Mike, clutched under his left arm. A cheer went up from the Hong Kong’s deck, which was taken up and echoed resoundingly by the boats’ crews. The newly arrived third and fourth divisions cast off their tow-ropes and raced after those of the nowdepleted first division, all of them somehow finding the heart and energy to join in the cheering. For all the world like boats at a peacetime regatta, the whole flotilla made straight for the junks which, evidently taken by surprise at this sudden turn of events, slackened their fire. Oars out, they broke their hitherto compact line and started to retreat up river, several hoisting their sails.
The manoeuvre, Phillip saw, was performed in beautiful order, the outermost moving off first and the rest continuing to fire at their on-coming attackers. But now, lacking their earlier cohesion and fire power, they were vulnerable and the British shot began to tell, particularly that of the Hong Kong. She steamed after the boats for a considerable distance, her bottom scraping mud, until once again the water shoaled and her progress was halted. She kept up her fire, however, scoring hit after hit with roundshot and rockets.
One of the junks, bearing a baleful red and yellow eye painted on her bow, received a hit which smashed most of her port-side oars to matchwood and Captain Cochrane yelled out an order to head and take her. Phillip’s boat won the race, his men pulling their hearts out in their efforts, and he came alongside with a jolting crash among the shattered oars, seeing above his head the junk’s lower gun-ports open yet robbed of menace, since the angle was now too steep for the gun muzzles to be depressed so as to bear on the launch. A frantic pounding of bare feet on the main deck told him that her crew were about to abandon her and, seizing a dangling rope, he led the rush to board her.
It was—as he had earlier imagined it would be—a novel and exhilarating experience to leap on to the deck of an enemy ship, cutlass in hand and six eager seamen at his back, all cheering wildly as they prepared to secure their prize. But … He drew in his breath sharply. Not all her crew had sought refuge in flight. Three or four were grouped round a swivel-mounted gingall, feverishly trying to slew it inboard to ward off the attackers, and a huge fellow with a pock-marked face, armed with a sword, rallied some of his people about him with the clear intention of making a fight of it.
Thankful that he had left young Lightfoot in charge of the boat, Phillip made for the big Chinaman, ducking a vicious slash from his sword and only dimly conscious of the shots whistling above his head as the crew of the gingall brought their cumbersome weapon into action at last. His pock-marked opponent parried his thrust and struck at him again but this time he went in under the man’s guard, warding him off with jabbing blows as the Chinese attempted to kick the blade from his grasp. He was surprised and not a little disappointed when his adversary screeched something in his own language and, turning swiftly, dived over the junk’s wooden guardrail into the river. The remaining members of his crew instantly followed his example, leaving their weapons behind them, and Phillip halted, breathless.
“Sir!” O’Brien seized his arm. “Watch out!” He pointed to a train of greyish-black powder laid along the deck. It had been ignited but hastily laid and Phillip could hear it hissing—or imagined he could—just behind him and there was scarcely need to look to ascertain in which direction it led. He yelled to his boarding party to get back to their boat and, fearing that they would not make it before the spluttering powder train reached its destination, started desperately trying to stamp it out. O’Brien joined him and he had barely time to repeat his order to return to the
boat when the junk’s magazine exploded with a dull roar. The force of the explosion flung both of them off their feet. Phillip picked himself up, bruised and shaken. With water pouring into her shattered hull, the junk took on a heavy list and, the deck canting steeply under his feet, he went in search of his coxswain, groping blindly in the black, choking smoke which, now ominously tinged with flames, was rising from the lower deck.
He had almost given up hope of finding the missing seaman when he stumbled over the prostrate body and heard O’Brien cursing dazedly. He dragged him up and together they staggered to the rail. The launch was below them, the boarding party safely inboard, and Lightfoot was standing up, waving furiously.
“Jump!” he managed thickly and, to his relief, O’Brien did so. Minutes later, the boat’s crew picked both of them out of the water, O’Brien shocked into full consciousness by his immersion and swimming strongly. They paddled clear of the junk before she sank in a welter of smoke and flames.
“We’re licking them, sir,” Midshipman Lightfoot offered consolingly, as Phillip slumped down beside him on the sternsheets, dripping and breathing hard. “Just look, sir—they’re all on the run! And the Commodore’s not going to let any of them get away. He’s signalling for a chase, sir!”
The boy was right, Phillip saw. The majority of the junks had been taken or run ashore; some, abandoned in midstream, were on fire as their lost prize had been, their crews adding to the hundreds of bobbing heads on the wreckage-strewn surface of the water. But some twenty or thirty had contrived to make their escape and it was these the Commodore was after, heading the chase in Edward Turnour’s cutter. Only seven or eight boats followed him, for the flotilla had taken savage punishment, some hulled and barely afloat, others disabled by casualties and capable of doing no more than paddle slowly to the rescue of sinking comrades. Keppel, he knew, was not the man to quit when there was still fighting to be done and he would need all the support available … He glanced at O’Brien. The coxswain, reading his thoughts, gave him a grin.